Course Catalog

Graduate Courses

Code

Kod

Course

Dersin Adı

Theo.

Teorik

Prac.

Uyg.

Credits

Kredi

ECTS

AKTS

Workload

İşyükü

POLS 501

Research Methods for Social Sciences

3

0

3

7,5

11,25

This course concentrates on the logic and methods that support the scientific study of political phenomena. Students will encounter topics that include causality, theory development, conceptualization and measurement, hypothesis testing, and data analysis. A major course component is an independent research project, which requires that students develop a good research question and test their research hypothesis using the appropriate formal/empirical methods. Upon completing the course, students will have the knowledge needed to understand and undertake systematic political research.

This course intends to help students understand the key points of contention among various theories of international relations that affect the discipline as well as help create rules, frameworks of analysis in the international system. The course is to provide students with a general information on the mainstream paradigms such as Liberalism, Realism and Marxist approach as well as on other theories and models Class system theory theories of international relations ranging from Social Constructivism to English School and Feminism and hence give an understanding of today’s international system and its major problems. With instructor’s guidance, students will read extensive literature on various IR theories that have evolved over time and come to contend with each other. We will go over how IR scholars debated over the nature of human beings, the role of power in social/political life, the nature of state and international system.

This course intends to provide students with a sense of current academic debates and familiarize them with recent publications in the field of political science. It aims to develop student’s analytical skills by providing them with a reading list in accordance with intellectual tendencies and research interests.

POLS 502

Turkish Politics since 1923

3

0

3

7,5

11,25

This course provides students with a rapid overview of Turkish political history since the emergence of the Republic and concentrates on the main actors of Turkish politics (political parties, army, media, civil society, religion…). Students in this class will learn to analyse the Turkish political system with an interdisciplinary eye.

Ders Kitabı:

Erik J. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History (London: IB. Tauris, 2004).

William Hale, Turkish Politics and the Military (London: Routledge, 2003).

Ümit Cizre (ed.), Secular and Islamic Politics in Turkey: The Making of the Justice and Development Party (London: Routledge, 2007).

POLS 507

Thesis / Yüksek Lisans Tezi

50

75

Research programme for MA degree is arranged between the student and a faculty member. Student should register for this course no later than the third semester of his/her M.A. study and should remain registered throughout all the semesters while the thesis is in progress.

POLS 509

Seminar / Yüksek Lisans Semineri

10

15

Students will be required to make a presentation of their research in front of faculty members and colleagues. The goal of this class is to improve academic skills and test the topic of research.

POLS 521

Caucasus and Central Asia in World Politics

3

0

3

7,5

11,25

The Caucasus and Central Asia, both former Soviet territories, are located at a crossroad between Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Historically, both regions have been dominated by different empires, including the Ottoman Empire, Persia, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. This course will cover the modern political history of the two southern regions of the former Russian and Soviet Empires which for the most part obtained independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 (the one exception being the North Caucasus, which includes Chechnya). These include the present states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia in the Caucasus, and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in Central Asia. The historical part of the course will cover the Russian conquest of these regions, the incorporation of these regions into the Russian Empire, and the social, cultural, economic, and political changes which ensued, the Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent creation of the new Communist state and the radical transformation of all aspects of life and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The course will especially explore some major regional conflicts and security challenges in Central Asia and the Caucasus as well as assess the role of key regional powers and international actors in shaping the geopolitics and security regimes in the region. By focusing on some major ethnic, territorial and social conflicts in specific states and analyzing the shared traits as well as divergences in political processes across the region, it will identify some fundamental shifts that took place in the region. It will begin with exploring the historical debates on the geopolitical importance of the broader region (the ‘Great Game’ perspective), analyze the effects of its isolation during the Soviet years, and highlight the new strategic salience of the region since September 2001. It will examine the centrality of fossil energy resources in shaping cooperation and competition among the states in the region as well as the engagement of international actors (Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, the EU and the US in particular) in the region.

Hiro, Dilip, Inside Central Asia: A Political and Cultural History of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tadjikistan, Turkey and Iran, New York: Overlook 2007

POLS 523

Political Islam

3

0

3

7,5

11,25

This course aims at presenting an overview of the main debates on the relations between Islam and politics in contemporary Muslim world and an overview of Islamist political ideas since the nineteenth-century in the Indian Subcontinent, Ottoman Empire, Arab world and Turkey.

Ders Kitabı:

Ali Rahnema, Pioneers of Islamic Revival (London: Zed Books, 2006).

Mohammed Ayoob, The Many Faces of Political Islam (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008).

Diplomacy is one of the very constitutive “orders” of the international system, a mainstay of civilization itself. This course examines classical diplomacy and its evolution in the West, the “integration” of regional diplomatic cultures through the League of Nations and United Nations, the establishment of foreign ministries and bilateral embassies, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961), the professionalization of diplomatic services, “summit” diplomacy and the use of special envoys, diplomatic ceremony and protocol, the nuances of diplomatic language, public diplomacy and social media, educational exchanges and intercultural dialogues, engagement with non-state actors, and the question of the future of formal diplomacy in a networked global society.

Ders kitabı: Keith Hamilton and Richard Langhorne,

The Practice of Diplomacy. Its Evolution, Theory and Administration, 2nd edition, Routledge, 2010

POLS 527

Selected Topics in World Politics

3

0

3

7,5

11,25

This course will examine a contemporary topic confronting world politics. Its objective is to provide an opportunity for a critical examination and discussion of relevant issues in world affairs. Topics vary by semester, and may include the Mideast Peace Process, ideological approaches to global politics, Islamic fundamentalism, and social justice issues in the Third World.

Ders kitabı: 1. Vasilyan, Syuzanna (2013) ''Moral Power' as Objectification of 'Civilian'/'Normative' EUlogy: the European Union as a Conflict-Dealer in the South Caucasus", Journal of International Relations and Development, 17 (13), 397- 424.

2. Vasilyan, Syuzanna (2011) ‘The External Legitimacy of the European Union (EU) in the South Caucasus’, European Foreign Affairs Review, 16 (3), 341-357.

Union and Global Governance (London and New York: Routledge), 177-187.

POLS 522

European Integration and EU-Turkish

3

0

3

7,5

11,25

This course analyses Turkey's relations with EU from political, economic, cultural and social dimensions. It provides a historical background for these relations since the post World War II order. The course also covers the legal framework of the EU-Turkish relations, namely the Ankara treaty, Association Agreement, as well as important steps of Turkey’s integration to the EU like the Customs Union and the phases of Turkey's association with EU. Turkey's position in EU's enlargement process and Turkish candidacy are also elaborated in detail. The objective of this course is to provide the students with a comprehensive understanding of the historical facts about the EU Enlargement strategy and the case Turkey as well as politics of Turkey – EU relations. Turkey has shown a keen interest in the integration process in Europe from the very beginning. Turkey applied for Associate Membership in the EEC, shortly after the Treaty of Rome, establishing the EEC, was signed in 1957. The Ankara Agreement, signed between Turkey and the EEC in 1963, envisaged Turkey’s full membership. When the European Council decided in its December 2004 Summit to open accession negotiations with Turkey on 3 October 2005, it ushered a new era in the relations between Turkey and the EU. On this context, therefore, this course will focus on historical, political and strategic developments between Turkey and the EU.

Okumalar:

Anderson, C., & Kaltenthaler, K. C. (1996). "The dynamics of public opinion toward European integration", 1973-93. European Journal of International Relations, 2, 175-199

B.Buzan and T.Diez, "The European Union and Turkey", Survival, vol.41, 1999, pp.41-57

Ziya Öniş and James Riedel, Economic Crisis and Long Term Growth in Turkey, Washington, D.C: World Bank, 1993· Yahya Tezel, Economic History of the Republic Era (in Turkish). Ankara. Economic and Social History Foundation of Turkey, 1994

Students will further their knowledge of the interdisciplinary study of the relations between power and society focusing on the main schools of Political Sociology. Students will also be invited to critically study and analyse the main theories of the principal authors from Marx to Foucault.

This course focuses on the political, economic, cultural and scientific relations between the Muslim Ottoman Empire and Christian Europe from the 14th to 20th centuries. Putting the theory of “clash of civilizations” to test, it seeks to demonstrate how religious, cultural and civilizational barriers failed to prevent communication, cooperation and co-existence between the two. Following a recent historiographical trend, the course will provide students with a re-interpretation not only of cross-cultural contact between different civilizations, but also of Ottoman history by relocating the Ottomans and the Ottoman Empire within the general structural dynamics of European and the Mediterranean history such as price revolution, military revolution, age of confessionalization, age of discovery, apocalyptical traditions and changing dynamics of international trade.

Ders kitabı

Halil İnalcık, Turkey and Europe in History (İstanbul: Eren, 2006)

Daniel Goffman, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)

POLS 530

Selected Topics in Turkish Foreign Policy

3

0

3

7,5

11,25

This course seeks to provide students with an understanding of the domestic and international forces that shape contemporary Turkish foreign policy. Since the end of the Cold War, Turkey has sought to adjust to the new realities of the changing international system by adopting new policies and strategies in its relations with neighboring states in the Middle East, the Caucasus, and the Balkans. Additionally, Turkey’s policies toward the United States and Western Europe have undergone changes. The main focus the course is on current developments although there will be some discussion of the historical background to Turkey’s international relations.

Ders Kitabı: Oktav, Özden Zeynep, ed., Turkey in the 21st Century Quest for A New Foreign Policy, Ashgate, 2011.

This course examines the processes of modernization and social change in the West and Middle Ages to the present. The historical phenomena of industrialization, liberalism, nationalism, imperialism, socialism, communism, fascism, and globalization--all of which are associated with modernization as it took place in the 19th and 20th centuries--are examined both in their historical contexts and within the framework of the classical sociological theories of social change. The historical case study offers the students a vehicle for analyzing in depth the impact of these phenomena on the life, institutions, and ways of thinking in Western societies.

This course will introduce students to the study of the Near and Middle East, through a variety of interconnected topics that have been important in the anthropological literature on the region. The course uses material on countries such as Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but will also include literature on Muslims in South East Asia and Europe. It seeks to balance ethnography and theory, drawing attention to contributions made to wider debates in the discipline.

This course examines the evolution of state and society in the contemporary Middle East against the backdrop of the dynamics of relationships between oil, Islam, foreign intervention, domestic strife and intra-state conflict. The course is thematic in its approach and selective in its use of major events to illustrate its coverage. It emphasises the theme of change, continuity and conflict in the political, social and economic transformation of the region.